MASSENA — We thought some prankster had messed with the specials board on the way in to Club 284.
A 40-ounce porterhouse steak $48? A 20-ounce Australian lobster tail for $72?
There'd better be a lot of room left on the company credit card, or we'd be doing dishes before we got out of this place. But a look at the regular menu allayed our fears, with regular prices like appetizers from $6 to $9, soups and salads from $3 to $5 and entrées in the mid- to upper teens.
It's a simple menu — no flowery descriptions, nothing too adventurous — kind of meat-and-potatoes with some basic fish thrown in: four steaks, prime rib, three chicken entrées, three pasta dishes and uncomplicated preparations of haddock, salmon and shrimp.
Club 284, at 284 E. Orvis St., is just a few blocks from the downtown core. It has been open since January, but there is no sign outside indicating the name of the restaurant. The couple we went with lives in Massena and didn't even know the restaurant existed.
It was one of the hottest evenings of the summer, and most of the daytime heat had found its way into the stuffy, empty dining room despite the air conditioning system working overtime. We assumed everyone was at home cooking burgers and dogs on the grill, so except for the good-sized bar area with just a couple of beer drinkers, the building was devoid of patrons.
Even the evening waitress had bailed for the night, so Liz the daytime bartender became Liz the evening waitress. And for being thrown into an unfamiliar situation at the last minute, she did an admirable job.
We tried three (out of five) appetizers.
Pot stickers ($6), a kind of Asian dumplings filled with ground pork and vegetables, were a tasty commercial product, drizzled with soy sauce and served over a leaf of iceberg lettuce.
Escargot ($8), French for snails, usually finds the little black delicacies floating in lots of butter and garlic. The garlic, if there was any, was super tame. The butter, if there was any, tasted like vegetable oil.
Ordinarily we'd be mopping up the butter-garlic sauce with our bread, but there were two problems: the sauce wasn't that great, and the miniature loaf of bread on a cutting board had been microwaved, making it soft and soggy.
An amazing appetizer, bacon-wrapped shrimp ($12), utilized huge shrimp and miniature asparagus spears, perfectly broiled, served over greens with a sweet teriyaki-like sauce on the side. This one's worth coming back for.
Liz had told us they were out of crab cakes, but the kitchen managed to find one and serve it to us on the house, which we appreciated, although the tartar-style sauce it came with was watery and undescribable.
Entrées come with either salad or homemade soup.
The house salad was a combination of iceberg lettuce and mixed greens. The house dressing was oily and needed a shot of vinegar. Caesar salad was very good, utilizing fresh, crisp romaine, basic boxed croutons and an enjoyable lemony dressing.
Corn-potato chowder was excellent, ultra-creamy with a touch of thyme. Beef barley was rich and hearty, loaded with flavor.
We were disappointed with the 10-ounce filet mignon ($25), and perhaps part of it was our own fault. We ordered it medium to medium-well done. It arrived well-well with not a trace of pinkness or juiciness. It was dead cow on a plate.
More disconcerting, we were expecting a nice, tall hunk of meat looking at us, but the kitchen butterflied it before grilling it. I understand doing this for an order for well-done meat, but butterflying it to cook it a little past medium made no sense.
Grilled salmon filet ($18) looked and tasted fine but appeared a little lonely on the plate all by it self. Nicely grilled asparagus was served in a side dish, as were the starch and veggies for all the other entrées — "cafeteria style," I like to call it.
Chicken Oscar ($23) is a classic dish: chicken topped with asparagus and crabmeat and finished with a drizzle of buttery béarnaise sauce. For $23, we wanted to make sure we'd be getting real crabmeat (not the imitation stuff with red food dye), and Liz assured us it was the real thing.
The chicken and asparagus were fine, the crabmeat was a real treat, but there was no béarnaise. Instead, it was surrounded by a milky-white wine sauce that didn't look or taste very appealing.
OK, someone had to do it. I got lobster. But not the gargantuan 20-ouncer.
There's a 12-ounce tail ($42) on the menu, so I ordered it. Liz asked how I wanted it prepared, but knowing that a tail that size is not easy to cook, I had her tell the kitchen to do whatever it felt best.
It came broiled, and it was done just right. The lobster meat was sweet and succulent — I hesitated to even dunk it in the melted butter on the side. And it was beautifully displayed, the meat pulled from its shell and carefully placed on top before it was cooked.
Rice pilaf, served on the side, was all stuck together, probably a warm-up from the night before. Other sides included real mashed potatoes and spaghetti with a sauce with a strong green pepper flavor.
Desserts were around $5 each and were all homemade, but we're not sure they were worth the calories.
Cheesecake had that great stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth consistency, but tasted like it might have been in the walk-in too long. Maybe we should have taken the berry option.
"Chocolate madness" looked like an upside-down muffin with the top chopped off and placed next to it, all covered with previously frozen strawberries and ganache.
My favorite was coffee cake with a cream cheese center — fresh, moist and delicious.
Key lime pie let us down. It had a good crust, although it was not a graham cracker crust usually associated with Key lime pie. The Key lime filling is usually thick and tall, but this was thin and very flat.
Dinner for four was $171 with tax but before tip. Remember I had the "baby" lobster tail that cost $42, about twice the cost of the other entrées.
The folks who went with us might have summed up Club 284 appropriately: "Our overall impression? It was good, not great.
You can contact Walter E. Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net.
Club 284
284 E. Orvis St.
Massena
705-0109
HOURS: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week
Serving steak, chicken and seafood with a smattering of fish. They specialize in lobster, offering a 12-ounce Australian tail for $42 and a 20-ounce tail for $72.
Rating: 3 forks
